My cottage cheese recipe requires holding at a constant temperature for 12 hours. Easy if you have sous vide and appropriate vessels. I can't remember if you have that. Plus, you need a gallon of milk, and, IIRC some buttermilk.

Can't you ask a neighbor if they have some, or are going to the store?

I've made pan ricotta with lactose free milk and it worked fine. What doesn't work is irradiated or ultra pasteurized. The ricotta is a lot easier, but might be too soft for your recipe. You'd have to drain it in cheesecloth for sure. Do you have cheesecloth?

I think your idea of using another recipe is better than trying to make your own spontaneously, if you can't beg or borrow some proper commercial texture cottage cheese, which, I'm sure, is what the recipe was wanting.

Pillog is up on curds. A fresh ricotta can be quick and loose.. but cottage cheese is..

And pillog. I got sous vide, how are you making your cottage cheese. I got a fresh gallon of whole pasteurized milk in the fridge and mmmm.

Plllog, I have sous vide equipment and I have cheesecloth, but I think I’d rather put off making the recipe until I can get some commercial cottage cheese. I have been purposely buying ultra-pasteurized milk to avoid frequent trips to the grocery. Going forward without all of the proper ingredients has great potential for disaster. Thanks for your help and advice!

Yeah, you can't make any kind of cheese from dead milk. :)

Here's the recipe from Cheese Making Recipe.com. The web page doesn't draw correctly. I make it up to the curd stage to use for making fresh hoop cheese for blintzes, with their recipe. The other way I know to make cottage cheese is where you age the milk at what we nowadays call unsafe temperatures, for a week. What I like about this recipe is that it's all milk, with salt added at the end. I can't remember if I've used the milk powder.

I use a quality food storage container to make the cheese and a medium sized hard sided picnic cooler for the sous vide. The container is five quarts, I think. I just happened to have it. That's big enough for the gallon of milk and cup of buttermilk. It would work with a 4.5 or 5 quart pot inside a big stockpot, too.

To cut the curd, use a long knife--it doesn't have to be sharp. A long icing spatula would probably work fine--cutting a grid of about 1" squares, or 1.5" x .5" rectangles. -ish. Hold the knife vertically, lightly touching the bottom of the vessel. The curd will be sitting on top of a pool of whey. After you drain the curds, while you are mixing in the cream and salt, you can break up the curds to the size you want.

Making Homemade Cottage Cheese Making Recipe

One may prepare cottage cheese at home by following a simple procedure. This is the easiest of all cheese to make.

You will need the following ingredients:

1 gallon of skim milk (You may add 1/2 cup of instant dry milk powder to the milk if you wish. This will make the cottage cheese richer.)

1 cup buttermilk

2 -3 Tablespoons heavy sweet cream

Salt to taste

Warm the milk to 86 degrees F.

Stir in the butter milk.

Keep the temperature at 86° F for 12 hours or overnight.

Cut the curd and then let set for 30 minutes.

Slowly begin to cook the curds, bringing the temperature up to 104° F.

Drain the curds.

And the final step is to add cream and salt.

Now enjoy your cottage cheese!

Oh! I forgot to say, don't discard the whey! There are lots of uses for it, and if you have enough, you can make traditional ricotta with it. :)

The simple vinegar method will make cottage cheese in just about 10 minutes of your time. Add a 1/2 hour of passive time for draining. (lemon juice works but adds an odd flavor most are not used to). Using vinegar is much different than using rennet. Less precise temps are needed.

!/2 gallon of milk and some vinegar you will have about two cups in no time, 😀

Nice curds for cottage at around 120º-140º. Straight to ricotta go higher like 180º-190º. I always batch in one gallon amounts. Make cottage, then ricotta with the whey. Whole milk, pasteurized, (not ultra-pasteurized). I realize that has been said but needs to be repeated. Will not work with ultra.

Using rennet will make a larger amount but will render a clear whey. Using the quick vinegar method will make less cottage cheese but will render a cloudy whey that will then make a small batch of ricotta.

So many different temps and information out there. Ricotta is technically made from the by-product of cheese making, the whey, but some I guess like Ina's recipe, go straight for ricotta. Serious Eats says ricotta can be made straight from milk by going to a higher temp, like 180-185º, and holding it there for 20 minutes to develop flavor.

Not sure where my notes came from. Guessing a bit from here and there.

A cheese making morning for me starts with 2 gallon whole milk. One gallon only makes two 3/4 lb balls of mozzarella. Second gallon for cottage. (DH likes it) Makes about 4 cups. I take some of that and use a puck press and make queso fresco. Then a ricotta from all the whey. Usually freeze the ricotta for cooking but good whipped up with herbs for toast or for dressings.

Another thing I don't do is squeeze, squeeze, and rinse under the sink faucet. I suppose some like a dry cottage curd but I don't want to rinse all that goodness down the drain. Some add back in a bit of cream.

Might try the sous vide method. Most of that time is also passive.

I would just wait to get the cottage cheese on the next order and do it then.

Unless you just want to try it for the sake of trying it.

I would think that it might make a difference if the lactose has been processed out of the milk. I would just wait on that and get some from the store.

Lactose free is fine. Just needs a culture that can be found in certain lactose free yogurts. I've only made it once when Family visited. Arrival meal is always a pizza party. It came out much like a feta but not much experience beyond that one time. It was very appreciated. I have more experience with vegan cheeses. The vegan category will please most of the intolerances and the chosen various diets.

Store shopping is fine but what is the fun in that. Even if it is never made, at least the knowledge exists if one wants to learn.